The Valiant Child
by Selene47
Summary: Left alone at the end of season 2, Rose finds an unexpected ally on her strange Earth...but also an unexpected enemy! Post Doomsday so MASSIVE SPOILERS for the end of season 2!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This idea suddenly came to me some time after the season 2 finale. Basically coz I hated how they left it and I'm the sort of person that needs to give characters closure. Even if they aren't my characters. So this is what came out of my head.**

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.  
**

Wind howled down the beach, snatching at the girl standing alone, a small figure whose black clothes stood out against the dull sand and grey sky. The raging sea lay before her, but Rose looked through it, her gaze turned inwards. 

"I'm never gonna leave you. I'll stay with you forever…" Her own words echoed inside her head, and she spoke them out loud, tasting salty tears on her lips.

It had been almost a month since she had stood on this very spot, the Doctor fading into nothing before her eyes. She had tried to stay with him, only to be snatched from the world she grew up in and hauled to safety, leaving him stranded and alone. A minute-long hologram was the only goodbye they got, before he was pulled back into that world without her.

Her eyes had been blurred with tears then, too, her heart filled with the aching loss that had become so familiar over the past few weeks.

The sea whispered back, but it wasn't the soft roar of the ocean she heard, but a man's familiar tone.

"Rose…Rose…"

"Doctor?" Hope swelled in her chest, but there was nobody to greet her as she opened her eyes. He had come back once, and that was all he could do. To see him again would mean the end of the world, literally.

"Rose…" She ignored the voice this time, telling herself it was her mind playing tricks. Squeezing her eyes shut, she retreated inside her mind, where she could be with him forever, frozen in time where no one could tear them apart. His face shone in her mind, a sad smile dimming his usually bright eyes. She reached out, eyes still shut tight, but the image faded as the voice got louder.

"Rose!" Her eyes fluttered open as she was hauled from the dream, jerking awake. An arm was reaching towards the dark ceiling. Shadows draped the room and the figure sitting on the edge of her bed.

"Doctor?" Rose mumbled, still half asleep, but the person reached out to switch on the lamp adorning her bedside cabinet.

"It's only me, love." Rose's hope plummeted as her mother reached out to brush hair from her clammy forehead. 'How are you feeling?'

The girl shrugged, her gaze inadvertently drawn to the bedside cabinet, or more specifically, to the pair of 3D glasses lying on the surface, next to a packet of pills. Jackie followed her look.

"Are you taking your sleeping pills?" She took the packet, saw that half the tablets were missing, and nodded in relief. "Good girl." She popped out two from the packet and placed them in her daughter's unresisting hand. "Your father wants you to go into work tomorrow, look through some files on some…alien or other."

Rose nodded absently, pretending to be tired, though she was becoming more awake every minute. Jackie ruffled her shoulder length blonde hair, turning the lamp off as she headed for the door. "Night, love." She cast her silent daughter a worried glance before shutting the door behind her, casting the room into darkness once more.

The tablets lay in her palm, offering a deep and dreamless sleep, free of worry and pain. But that wasn't what she wanted. She would willingly endure the pain of a thousand lonely nights to see his face in her dreams.

Rose lay in silence in the comforting blackness for a few minutes, wide-awake and drowning in loneliness. Finally she sat up, swinging her legs out of bed. Her bare feet made no noise on the soft carpet as she padded slowly to the window, the two sleeping pills still clenched in a fist. She stared out at the view of London, brightly lit despite the late hour. She found herself wondering what the Doctor was looking at. Earth, or some strange planet that she'd never see, or the inside of the TARDIS where she'd never set foot again…

Opening her fist, she dropped the small white pills out of the window, where they were instantly swallowed by the darkness. Rose stood at the window a moment longer, the cool English air wafting her hair around her face and tugging at her thin cotton pyjamas, before slipping back into bed.

It took a long time to get to sleep, and her dreams were haunted by the Doctor's sad smile.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.**

Rose's bare feet made no sound as they made the long walk down the thickly carpeted hallways to the kitchen. Wearing a cheery pink dressing gown over her pyjamas, no make up, and hair unbrushed, she was the image of 7.30 in the morning. She passed the door to Mickey's room, hearing the shower running; he was making the most of having an en suite bathroom. Rose on the other hand found it bizarre, after living in a flat with only a handful of rooms for nineteen years, to suddenly be living in a house she had yet to explore completely.

She remembered her friend's concern on their first night back. She hadn't spoken a word on the journey and had gone straight to her new room and locked the door. Mickey and her parents (she was still coming to terms with having a father again) had paused outside, talking to her through the wooden door.

"It'll be OK, love," her mother had promised, not knowing that Rose was rigid with fear beside the open window, terrified that she was longing to throw herself into the cold comfort of death. It was the Doctor that made her slowly close the window, shutting off the cool London air that couldn't quite decide whether it was spring or summer. The alien she barely knew with two hearts that travelled through time and cheated death, who she knew better than she knew herself. His face shone in her mind, his expression radiating concern, but his eyes betrayed his disappointment. Wherever he was, Rose knew he could never forgive her if she just gave up hope. They both knew she was stronger than that. Hadn't she lived through both parents' deaths? Didn't she know more about aliens than anyone on Earth? No, she had to carry on living. Day after day, year after year, living the life he could never have. She had to live it for him.

That was three weeks ago. Almost four months had passed since the move, when they had not only moved house, into the mansion that her father owned in this world, but also moved dimensions. It was so different, yet exactly the same. The view from her window was unfamiliar, yet if she went to her old flat and stood on the balcony outside (there was, of course, a strange couple living there now), it was the same view she had looked at every day of her life before the Doctor. When she still longed for change, for excitement. Before she got everything she ever wanted, only to have it pulled away such a short time later.

Rose finally reached the kitchen, the plush carpet giving way to cold linoleum. The kitchen was bigger than their whole front room back at the flat, with shiny black counters and state of the art cooking equipment. The room was empty; Pete had a dozen kitchen staff and servants employed when he lived there with 'Alternate Jackie' (indeed, Rose herself had masqueraded as a waitress the first time she had been to the house). But his new family had all found it strange to have cooks and cleaners, when all they had at home was a rusty oven with only one heat setting, and a small, clanking vacuum cleaner. So he had sent his entire staff home, except a few maids to look after their bedrooms.

Rose poured herself a bowl of Cornflakes with milk, and a glass of orange juice. She was just sitting down at the breakfast bar to eat them when her mother came in, wearing a large purple dressing gown and fluffy slippers. She flashed Rose a cheerful smile that somehow conveyed all her worry.

"How are you this morning, love?" Jackie dropped two slices of bread into the toaster, fetching a jar of pickles from the oversized fridge. She was just starting her third month of pregnancy, and some of her craving made Rose gag. Like her current favourite: pickles and ketchup on toast.

"Fine." Rose hunched over her cereal, afraid the rings around her eyes would give away her sleepless night. She barely spoke any more, choosing to spend most of her time in her room or the library, writing about her adventures or sketching the Doctor. She was hopeless at both, yet desperate to make some record of the precious time with him. Jackie on the other hand, tried to cheer her up by prattling endlessly.

"I was just getting used to sleeping in, and then this baby decides it wants to wake me up at seven in the morning! Don't get pregnant love; the hormones are awful. I'll tell you who has got pregnant. You won't know her. Jan, my friend from new Bingo, her son's one to America you know. She's always bragging about the places he's been. Ooh, if she only knew. What's that planet called? Where you went? The one with the long name? Oh never mind. Well, her friend Karen's daughter…"

Rose tuned out. She had tuned out at the word 'sleeping'. Swallowing he last of her Cornflakes, she muttered something about being late for work and escaped Jackie's first bite of her sickening breakfast.

"You know what, this could use a bit of tuna…" Her mum's voice and the clattering of tins followed Rose down the hall.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.**

For the hundredth time since joining Torchwood, Rose glanced out of the window at the view of London, the exact copy of her own. Exact except for the intense heat beating through the thick glass. This high up, there was no shade to protect from the burning rays. She desperately missed the old London, where Global Warming was still just a looming threat, and felt a flash of relief that they no longer had to wear the sweltering black uniforms of the People's Republic. The PR had been swiftly converted into the Investigations division of Torchwood after the Cybermen changed worlds.

Getting rid of the uniform was Rose's idea; she remembered something the Doctor said once: "Don't be conspicuous. The only way you can help anyone is to look like anyone else." She wore denim cut-offs and a T-shirt with her trainers, rapidly growing blonde hair brushed into a ponytail – in other words, like any other twenty-year-old London resident.

The main job of the Investigations unit was to travel to different countries, anywhere where Communications picked up a distress signal or other sign of alien life. Rose had yet to travel further from the house than the Torchwood building, but she already loved the feeling of being back in the world of aliens. She was proving to herself that she could manage on her own, without the Doctor. Even if she never stopped thinking about him. And talking to him inside her head…

"And Communication picked up a transmission last night. I want you all to take a look at some of the possible alien races the language is from." Her father was saying, and she hastily dragged her mind back to the present. Mickey, on her right, was elbowing her in the ribs, and she realised they were the only ones left sitting down.

"Ow. I know, I'm coming." They made their way to the lift after the few other members of Investigations, who were chatting about their plans for the weekend, or what the other division might have found. But Rose's mind was on other things, and she barely noticed when Mickey steered her out of the lift onto the next floor down.

"These are the alien races we think the signal may have been from," a young man was saying. Rose didn't know his name, but recognised him as being one of the few who had recently been found by Recruitment. He was writing an essay for University on something alien, which had alerted the attention of the headhunters, and had agreed to work for them. Stuff like that was always happening; people being plucked off the street or out of college, and persuaded to join Torchwood (not that much persuasion was needed; most of them would willingly give their right arm for such an opportunity). They were engineers, language specialists, influential figures. Nobody like Rose - but that was how she preferred it.

They all crowded round the table he was standing at, photographs of different aliens carefully laid out in rows on the surface. The young man from Communications avoided her eye as Rose pushed her way to the front of her team to examine the photos, but she ignored him. There were few people who did manage to meet her gaze or Mickey's, and yet she could see them staring from the corner of her eye whenever she looked away. Everyone knew they were outsiders, from another Earth and another London; nobody was allowed to keep secrets like that in a place like Torchwood.

A transmission was repeating on a loop from a nearby computer, but it wasn't anything she recognised. She felt worried when none of the alien gibberish organised itself into English inside her head, but dismissed it. The TARDIS couldn't have taught her every language in the universe. But she was left with a niggling worry at the back of her mind, that she wouldn't let herself think about.

_What if the translator doesn't work in this -_

Quickly pushing her thoughts away, Rose quickly eliminated a lot of the aliens she recognised from the list. By the time they broke off for a tea break, just over half of the images were left, and the man was busily organising them into neat rows. She rolled her eyes; nothing could be neat with aliens, nothing ordered or organised. She doubted he had ever encountered a real alien in his short time here.

She followed Mickey to the kitchen and poured herself a mug of tea. That was another thing disconcerting about this world: the tea. She made it exactly the same as she had back home, and yet there was something distinctly…'not tea' about it, unrecognisable unless you were paying attention. She sipped it and scowled.

"Something wrong?" Mickey swallowed a mouthful of tea without seeming to notice the difference. She shook her head, and they made their way back up to the next floor, where Rose sat at her computer in a daze, flicking through obscure blogs and forums, anywhere that had a mention of anything alien. If she had found something concrete her father would have to be alerted, but after spending a year with the Doctor, she could easily recognise the real descriptions. "A small green man standing in my front room making 'bleep bleep' noises", for instance.

Nothing remotely important came up, and her father sent her home at half three, saying she looked peaky. She didn't go back to the house, choosing instead to wander through the London streets, trying not to notice everything that was different to home. She stopped to eat at a chippy she didn't recognise, slumped at a table near the window munching chips that were almost identical to any she'd ever tasted, and stared at the cars roaring past, belching poison into the already tattered atmosphere.

Rose had just taken another mouthful of chips when her phone trilled in her jacket pocket, gaining an accusatory glare from an old woman. Grimacing apologetically, Rose ducked out of the café, dropping the remains of her lunch into the nearest bin when she realised she wasn't hungry.

"Hello?" said Rose as she answered her mobile, and Mickey's excited voice floated from the other end. He was talking almost too fast to hear, and it took Rose a few minutes to make him slow down.

"Pete says we can't solve the transmission without outside help," her friend repeated, fighting to keep his voice steady. "He says we need to find the old head of Communications, someone who left years ago. Years and years. Oh my God, Rose!"

"What?" Rose didn't get why he was so bothered about this old retired guy. "Who is it, Mickey? Don't keep me in suspense." She was smiling at his childlike enthusiasm despite herself.

He told her. And the grin slid off her face as her mouth dropped open in amazement.**  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.**

Mickey Smith drummed his fingers impatiently on the wheel of his Mini Cooper (a gift from Pete, after Jackie told him about the heroic green Mini left to rust on the street outside Mickey's old flat), waiting for the traffic light in front to turn green. The minute it did he was away, hastily glancing at his watch. He had told Rose he would pick her up from outside the chippy at 4.15, and he was almost twenty minutes late. Well, it wasn't his fault the bus had been late, and then he'd had to walk to the house from the bus stop. He found his Mini among the other dozen cars Pete had refused to sell, after trying to decipher the directions from the torrent of gibberish Rose had squealed at him over the phone.

At least it had got her talking, he thought with forced optimism as he changed gear to turn a sharp corner. She had been so silent and withdrawn lately, and fear and worry had knotted into a permanent lump in his stomach, weighing him down more every day. Along with anger – anger at the Doctor, for seducing her with wild stories of travel through time and space. For making her realise she deserved more than 21st century Earth, a mum who never shut up, a loser for a boyfriend. Mickey himself had had a taste of that life, a life of danger and aliens - it was terrifying, exhilarating, life-affirming stuff, but it wasn't his style. But Rose…she was born for it; lived for it. And so he was angry with the Doctor for leaving her, sometimes so angry it was like a hot piece of lead lodged in his brain, and he could barely think for it being there. But he was also insanely, selfishly glad, and he found he hated himself for that almost as much as he hated the Doctor.

He saw her, leaning against the wall by the café, before she recognised the car. It was pretty hard to miss – a bright, electric blue Mini – but she was clearly thinking about something else, and it didn't take a genius to guess what. She waved as he pulled up beside her, though, the first real smile he'd seen in months beginning to spread over her face. Mickey guessed it was only the fear of disappointment that kept it at bay, and he was right.

"Is it true?" Rose asked again as she fastened her seatbelt, fortunately too preoccupied to chastise Mickey for forgetting his own. He hastily fumbled for it as she fixed him with a stare. "You're late, by the way."

He grinned as he rolled out of the parking space, forgetting to check the road in his haste and nearly running into the path of another car. The driver honked his horn, yelled something obscene out of the window as he passed. Mickey grimaced, but nothing could dampen his excitement. "Yes, it's true."

"Sarah Jane, Mickey! Sarah Jane!"

Mickey answered her grin with one of his own, secretly slightly irritated that it had taken someone connected to the Doctor, someone they had only met once, to break her silence. Now she was babbling fast enough to challenge her mum.

"…She used to work for Torchwood! I never even thought she'd exist over here, and now I find out she worked for my dad! Oh, I hope she can work out this transmission thing and work with us again."

"There's no saying she'll be able to, you know," Mickey reminded her. He had nothing against Sarah Jane, he just didn't want Rose to get her hopes up, only to be let down again. "I mean, you should have been able to understand it. Maybe even me. I thought the TARDIS did that hocus-pocus that made you understand alien speech?"

The first flicker of worry flashed across her face, so fast Mickey almost thought he'd imagined it. "I dunno," she said at last, as the car took a sharp corner. Mickey's eyes flicked to the map on his knees, to her face, back to the road. "Maybe it wears off after a bit, like if you stay away from the TARDIS for a long time. Or maybe it can't reach me from here for it to work." That small crease of worry was back as she frowned, chewing her lip. Mickey had an uncontrollable urge to bring the smile back.

"Nah, it can't be that," he promised, "It must just be a really new language…so new even the TARDIS hasn't discovered it yet. If they have it over there." She didn't reply, or ask him to elaborate; they both knew where "over there" was. Rose nodded, but the ghost of a frown still lingered as the Mini left the outskirts of London and emerged on a country lane.

"Where exactly does she live, then?" The girl asked after a while to change the subject, neither of them wanting to contemplate how to handle a previously unknown alien race. Mickey, who was once more studying the map to manoeuvre through a crossroads, took the left-hand fork before answering.

"Not far now, 'bout another half an hour."

And then, because it had been worrying him for a while now, and because he didn't want Rose to be disappointed, and he couldn't think of anything else to build up to it, Mickey said abruptly: "It won't be Sarah Jane, you know. Not our Sarah Jane. She might not even have met him."

"I know," said Rose after a moments thought, "She won't have met my Doctor, but…" She shook her head, unable to find the words.

"I know," Mickey told her. All she had left was hope, and he didn't want to take it from her. She was clinging to the cliff face of despair, and he didn't want to admit it, but one of her last chances of climbing to safety was Sarah Jane.

They drove in silence until they found a small town, a typical country village with stone houses, a couple of pubs, convenience store and church. "This is it." Rose said as Mickey opened his mouth. It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway. Rose could almost feel how close they were getting, she was leaning forward in her seat as if she could sense which way to go. And the expression on her face made Mickey a bit nervous. It was a look of desperate, yearning hope.

Neither of them spoke as the car came to a stop outside an ordinary looking, 2-storey house made of grey brick, with vines creeping up the wall, a small but tidy lawn and a driveway leading up to the front door. Rose unclipped her seatbelt, and Mickey started to do the same, but she grabbed his arm.

"I…" she began as the question formed on his lips, but found she didn't know what she had been about to say. She felt something like kinship with Sarah Jane, and knew that having Mickey there would make talking about the Doctor uncomfortable. "You should stay here," she managed at last, "It might creep her out if more than one of us goes."

She was lying, and could tell he knew it, but he thought he hid his disappointment pretty well. "Right. I'll be ready waiting for the quick getaway." He tried a grin, but she had already turned away and got out, missing how strained the smile looked. Mickey leaned back in his seat and watched his friend as she went up to the door, and raised a fist to knock.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Wow guess what? I'm allowed back on ff! Wooo!**

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.  
**

Rose knocked quickly as soon as she reached the door, so she wouldn't lose her nerve and run to fetch Mickey. This was something she had to do on her own. The knock sounded more confident than she felt.

"Hello?" She called after a few minutes, when nobody came to the door. "Anyone home?" A mixture of disappointment and relief flooded through her; disappointment that she wouldn't find out whether Sarah Jane would have any idea what she was talking about, relief that she didn't have to. She was turning to leave when there was the click of a latch, the door opened a few inches and a face appeared.

"Who are you?" Said Sarah Jane, and Rose instantly felt her spirits plummet to trainer level. There was no recognition in the face of the woman before her.

"Sarah Jane?" Asked Rose, just to make sure it was her, and not someone who looked a lot like her. She couldn't see much of the face in the gap. "Sarah Jane Smith?" The door shut again, and Rose was wondering whether to leave or not when she heard the safety chain being slid off, and the door opened fully.

It was definitely Sarah Jane. She had the same dark, red-brown hair hanging loose around her shoulders, the same half stern, half kind expression, the same blue eyes that said she'd seen more about the universe than the average human should have. She was dressed in jeans, a jumper and slippers. Since she was at home at 5 in the afternoon, on a Thursday, when everyone Rose knew worked until 6.30 so they could leave early on the Friday, she guessed that she had never found more work after leaving Torchwood. After all, it wasn't something you could put on your CV, being top secret and all.

"I haven't been Sarah Jane Smith for twenty years." She said thoughtfully, looking Rose up and down, taking in her "inconspicuous" outfit and scuffed trainers. She glanced at Mickey, waiting in the car, who waved self-consciously. "And since you didn't know that, I'm guessing you aren't from Wheatfield, and you aren't here to sell me something."

"Er, you guess right," said her visitor, who was frantically trying to think of which path to take now she knew Sarah Jane definitely didn't know who she was. Instinct told her to go with the truth. "My name's Rose Tyler, I'm from London." Sarah Jane's eyes had narrowed suspiciously when she said "Tyler", but Rose ploughed ahead anyway. "I come from somewhere you used to work. Er –"

Sarah Jane was shutting the door. Rose dived forwards, and managed to wedge her foot in the way. "Listen," she said frantically. This was not going well at all, "I – we need your help. Please!"

"Get your foot out of my door or I'll call the police." Came a calm voice from the other side of the door, and Rose could tell she wasn't bluffing.

"Fine, but you have to –"

"Three. Two –"

"All right!" Rose yanked her foot free, breathing hard. "But please, you have to hear me out. Please." She saw Sarah Jane was considering it, and risked a glance over her shoulder. Mickey was half out of the car. "Mickey, stay there!" She yelled. He reluctantly obeyed. Rose spun back to face the woman, who was still eyeing her suspiciously.

"I don't know what your people have told you about me, but you can probably tell I'm good at guessing people's motives. And, as I told your father when he rang, I've no interest of coming back to Torchwood."

Quickly squashing her surprise at Sarah Jane's knowledge of who her father was, along with the thrill that passed through her every time she remembered he was alive, Rose put on the Doctor's most charming smile. "But we wouldn't need you to come back for good," she explained, "Only to sort out this transmission thing. And -"

"No, thank you." The older woman interrupted her again. "Though I can see it's obviously gone downhill since I left, if they're employing straight from school. How old are you exactly?"

Rose felt a flash of amusement - Sarah Jane had said exactly the same thing when they had first met - and then an almost simultaneous flare of anger. Her disarming grin had vanished. "I'm twenty," she told her, "And I've seen more in the past year than you have in your whole life. I've been to places you couldn't even imagine, and I'm from further away than you could comprehend, and I've lost just about the only thing that made my life mean anything, so you shouldn't think that just because you're older, you know more about the universe than me!"

"Oh." Said Sarah after a few seconds, when she saw that Rose was close to tears and trying to hide it. "Well. Er, I think you'd better come in and have a cup of tea."

Rose nodded dumbly, afraid that she'd start blubbering if she opened her mouth, cast a warning glance over her shoulder in Mickey's direction, and slowly followed Sarah Jane inside.  



	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.**

Sarah Jane Smith led a normal life until she was eighteen, and went to university. That's when she started to feel like she was being watched. At first she put it down to stress from working too hard (she was focusing on Extra Terrestrial languages for her current project) and continued to ignore any suspicions, until one day she was approached in the hallway on her way to a lecture. The man told her he worked for an organisation called Torchwood, a secret branch of the government, and they were interested in the work she had been doing. They offered her a job, her dream job, and she accepted at once.

It was difficult explaining to her family and friends why she had suddenly decided to leave university. Torchwood was kept top secret for security reasons, so she couldn't tell anyone that she was still doing what she loved. The only differences were that most of her theories turned out to be true, and she was being paid a ridiculous amount of money to do the thing she had always dreamed of.

When she was twenty-one, a young man called Tobias Reede joined Research and Development. They got married a year later, and Sarah Jane Smith became Sarah Jane Reede. She couldn't have been happier with her life, or her job

"So why'd you leave Torchwood?" Asked the girl sitting before her – the third thing that had suddenly changed her life. The second had been her sudden decision to leave Torchwood two years after the wedding. Toby had asked her the same thing, and she hadn't exactly lied. She told him she was pregnant, (which was true), and that she would rather stay at home and bring up her son than put them both in danger every day, (which wasn't). She had never told him the real reason, because her boss had sworn her to secrecy. She didn't know why she had to tell her strange new visitor the truth – surely she should already know, if she did work there, as she claimed.

"When I tell you, you have to explain what you're doing here. How you found me." Rose nodded obediently, and Sarah took a deep breath to steady her thumping heart, to slow the secret she had kept for nearly twenty years from blurting out. There were times she had almost let it spill out, but she reminded herself that she wasn't allowed, that they didn't want to risk any leak of information, even to her husband.

"Because I found something. Something real - an alien."

The girl didn't even blink, just waited patiently for the rest of the story. Sarah stared at her. _Just who is this girl?_ She found herself wondering yet again. She showed up out of the blue one day, told her she came from London, and somehow further away than Sarah could imagine as well, then refused to tell her more until she had found out everything about the ex-Communications officer.

"I killed it," she confessed, quickly carrying on before Rose could speak, "Well, that is to say, I told my boss about it. Not Pete Tyler, he didn't take over until much later, after I'd left. This was a man called Grady. I reported the finding to him - a spaceship had crashed in the countryside not far away - and requested permission to be on the team that retrieved it. Now I wish I hadn't. We found the ship, and the alien. It looked like…" She broke off and gave a humourless laugh.

"What?" The girl was gazing at her, completely absorbed in the tale. Rose found herself hoping for an alien she recognised, had met, just for some sort of connection to the Doctor. Then she remembered that Sarah had killed it, and hastily took the wish back. She was in luck.

"Like a human, sort of. Like something with only a vague idea of human anatomy trying to pass itself off as a human. It was a kind of silvery-grey colour, like fish scales, and was only about three feet tall. And it had these huge eyes, and arms almost long enough to reach the ground. The team leader told it to come quietly. Most likely it didn't understand him. It didn't answer, just stared at him, standing beside his absurd-looking wreck of a ship. Then when Davis tried to force it to come with us…" She shuddered, looking disgusted and sick.

"It's OK. You don't have to tell me. I'll just leave." Rose began to stand up, was faintly surprised when Sarah Jane grabbed her wrist.

"No! I have to know who you are. And I've been waiting to tell someone the truth for so long."

Rose sat back down, and Sarah Jane continued.

"It killed Davis, shot electricity or something out of its hand. I expect it thought we were trying to attack it. So the others opened fire. They'd given me a gun and taught me how to use it, but I couldn't –" Rose was alarmed to see tears running down her face. Sarah Jane hadn't seemed the sort to cry when she'd last met her. _But that wasn't her, remember? That was someone else, someone who'd had the Doctor teach her about what humans do to aliens._

"I felt so guilty. It was my fault they killed that poor creature. It might have had a wife and kids on another planet. Maybe it got lost and crashed by accident. I expect we'll never know. Or at least, I won't – I turned in my resignation the next morning. I couldn't live with myself if I knew that every alien I found and reported ended up killed, just because it didn't understand what we wanted."

"But it wasn't your f –" Rose began, but Sarah silenced her with a shake of her head. It had always amazed her how she'd been able to do that to people.

"No," She said, "I know it _was_ my fault, and I've had nearly twenty years to deal with it. And now I've told you my story, you have to tell me yours. Who are you?"

"You won't believe me –"

"Yes, I will."

And the conviction in the woman's eyes was so strong that Rose thought she'd believe anything she would tell her. "OK. I'll tell you. But you have to promise not to interrupt or ask questions until I'm done."

"I promise." Sarah Jane replied without hesitation. The hunger for knowledge shining in her eyes was intense and slightly scary.

"Well, it started a year ago. When I first met a man called the Doctor…" Rose began, and then the words poured out. She couldn't have stopped them if she'd wanted to.


	7. Chapter 7

**Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.**

Mickey glanced at his watch for the twentieth time. Nearly half an hour had passed since Rose had gone inside the house with the woman they knew as Sarah Jane Smith, and there was no movement from inside or any sign of what was going on. She could be a psychopath in this world, for all they knew. She could be –

His increasingly panicked thoughts were suddenly interrupted as the passenger door opened and a tall, pale man in a dark suit sat down beside to him. The eyes he fixed on Mickey's were so pale a grey they were almost colourless, and seemed to shine with a strange, unearthly light. His hair was thick and black, and glinted greasily in the sunlight. Mickey opened his mouth to speak, but found the words wouldn't come, as if something was blocking his throat. The man smiled; it would have looked friendly anywhere other than beneath those eyes, and Mickey went suddenly cold.

"I've been looking for you for a very long time," the man said, and his voice was like his hair – slick and oily. "I have something that may be of interest to you and your friend."

"Hurt Rose and I'll kill you!" Mickey blurted out, suddenly finding his voice.

"I've no intention of hurting either one of you. As long as you do as I say, that is." His smile widened, showing his small, sharp teeth. "Come with me." The man moved to open the door, and Mickey seized the opportunity. Scrabbling in the glovebox, his fingers closed around the grip of the pistol he kept there.

"Stay away from me and Rose or I'll shoot!" he promised, hoping he sounded braver than he felt. The gun shook in his fist, and he doubted he'd be able to use it; he thought he had gained courage over the past year, but when this stranger smiled he felt like a kid again, scared of the monsters under his bed.

"I don't think so." The man easily plucked the weapon from unresisting fingers, and before he knew it, Mickey was staring down the wrong end of the gun.

"I'll do whatever you want," his mouth said, and the man nodded, still smiling.

"I know you will," he said. Then his fist came down and Mickey was swallowed by darkness.

There was a full ten minutes of silence when Rose stopped talking. The silver clock on the mantelpiece told her it was gone quarter past six, and the quiet ticking seemed to increase in volume until it filled the room. _Mum'll worry if I'm not back soon,_ she thought, but made no move for her phone or the door. Seconds clicked by, and then Sarah Jane cleared her throat, meeting Rose's eyes for the first time instead of the mug of tea in her fist, now stone cold.

"So…you…you're from another, uh, world," she said calmly, "And now you're trapped here, with no way of getting back home, and all because of this man, this…Doctor."

"It's not his fault." Rose hurried to explain. "He didn't…I mean…I chose to go with him, he didn't…" They both groped for words, and Sarah Jane reached them first.

"I'm sorry…" She whispered. "It must be so awful, to be so far from home."

"Yeah, well. This is my home now. I have to get used to it sooner or later," she hesitated. She had left out the part about meeting Sarah Jane in her world, partly because she didn't want to freak her out, partly because she didn't know what she planned to do about it. And even though most of her knew that they were two separate people, from two separate worlds, a small voice at the back of her mind was niggling away, trying to make her tell the whole truth. She paused, and then said almost reluctantly, "Just like you did."

"Me? What does any of this have to do with me?" Suspicion was creeping back onto Sarah's face, and Rose hoped she didn't look guilty or dishonest.

"The thing is…in this parallel world, I met someone called Sarah Jane Smith. Someone who'd met the Doctor, travelled with him, just like me." She paused. "Someone who was left behind, just like I was." She was met once more with silence. It felt to Rose that Sarah Jane was weighing everything said previously against those few sentences, and had a sinking feeling she had gone too far. To her partial relief, she was spared whatever the older woman would have said next by the sound of a key turning in the lock, and footsteps from the hallway.

"I'm home, Sarah." A male voice called, and not an altogether pleasant one. And the man who appeared in the doorway wasn't very pleasant to look at either. He had a nice enough face, with a strong jaw, and a wide forehead with thick, wiry hair falling over it. It was his eyes that were strange. They were a pale, luminous silvery colour, and all at once Rose heard alarm bells start clanging in her head, though she had no idea why. But Sarah was smiling, and stood up to kiss the stranger on the cheek.

"This is my husband, Tobias. Toby, this is…Rose."

"Nice to meet you," his tone was clipped and oily. He held out a hand for her to shake, and Rose slowly got to her feet, unwilling to touch him. The alarm bells were quieting down, and the hand when she shook it was normal – a bit damp perhaps, but human.

"You too," she said, suddenly feeling nervous. "Look, I'd better be going, else my Mum might worry…" Sarah half looked as if she was going to argue, but gave her a small smile.

"Sorry I couldn't be of help." She said, to make it clear she wanted nothing else to do with Torchwood, but she couldn't keep the curiosity from her face, and it was obvious to Rose that she was desperate to know more.

"That's OK." She lied. "My Dad will probably ring tomorrow though. Just so you know." They had somehow moved onto the doorstep. Rose momentarily thought the man – Tobias – had somehow teleported them, but told herself she was being stupid, getting suspicious over nothing because she wanted her life back to the way it was with the Doctor. Anything was better than this dull, monotonous life of sleep and work, but she couldn't condemn him as an alien just because his eyes gave her the creeps. She realised they had just been walking during the goodbyes.

But as she turned to go, she was instantly sure that something was wrong, and would have been pleased if she weren't suddenly swallowed by fear. Mickey had been parked in his Mini by the side of the road, and both man and car had vanished.

"Did you see a car here?" She turned to ask Tobias. "A blue Mini -" The door was shut; she was alone on the step. It had become quickly dark, and Rose suddenly shivered. She was on her own in a strange village, and Mickey had disappeared.

_He probably just got bored and went home,_ the part of her mind that still used rational thought suggested, but the part that had become like the Doctor argued. _Not without me, never without me. Something's wrong._

She immediately turned round and raised a fist to hammer on the door, but her fist was halted in mid air. A thin, horizontal line of mysterious blue light had appeared inside the house; she could see it through the patterned glass windows in the door. Hastily dropping to her knees on the doorstep, Rose lifted up the letterbox and peered through. The light was shining from underneath a closed door. Rose started to feel stupid about panicking over a light, when she realised with glee that the light wasn't natural. It flickered in a completely unnatural way.

"I knew it!" She hissed, then froze, kneeling on the step, as someone came into the hall, blocking the light. Numb fingers let go of the letterbox and it snapped shut loudly. Rose scrambled to her feet as the door opened. It was Sarah Jane.

"Did you need something else?"

"No, just…I was just leaving." Rose managed, heart still pounding, adrenaline beginning to rush in a familiar way.

"All right." Sarah started to close the door, then paused and glanced around before continuing in a whisper. "I really am sorry about the transmission. The thing is…I quit all this stuff a long time ago, and if I came back, even for one job, I might…" She shrugged helplessly. "Anyway, what would I tell Toby? He's already in the dark as to why I left in the first place. If I suddenly changed my mind…he might think I'm losing my marbles."

Rose nodded understandingly, and then remembered something said earlier. "You said you had a son? Where's he?"

"Oh yes, my son Matthew. He's staying at a friend's tonight. It's a pity you never met him, you'd have liked him. Everybody does." Her tone was easy, but her expression in the dark was troubled.

"Right, so…he lives here then? He's not moved out?"

"No, he's only just eighteen."

"Right…"

"Why? What do you need to know about Matt for?" The suspicion was back.

"No reason, just curios," said Rose quickly. "I'll be off then. Don't want to miss the bus." Sarah smiled one last time before gently shutting the door in her face.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.**

Rose had no intention of leaving the street, but quickly realised that she was far too obvious as she was. It was a little after seven, and people were still out despite the gathering darkness. An old man smiled at her as she passed him, a boy slightly younger than she was looked at her appreciatively, then blushed and fled as she glared at him. She was attracting altogether too much attention.

It took her another hour to get back to the house - luckily a bus pulled up just as she reached the bus stop – and she slipped inside and quickly ran to her room. She exchanged her cut-offs for a pair of black jeans and zipped up her black leather jacket over a dark blue T-shirt. She pulled on a pair of black boots, and then, trying not to think of what she was about to do, a black beanie hat over her loose blonde hair.

Her mum was in the lounge, and she had to pass that way to get to the garage, but luckily the door was shut and Rose just had to call through the door to tell her she was going out. A glance inside the garage confirmed her fears; Mickey's Mini was nowhere to be seen. She unhooked the keys to the BMW from the hooks by the door. Her dad might notice they were missing, but she had to risk it; it was the only black car, and it had tinted windows. The engine purred as she started it up and pressed the remote to open the garage door. Rose presumed her mum had the TV turned up too loud to hear her, but her heart still pounded in fear of being caught, especially since she was technically about to break the law.

It took much less time to get to Wheatfield in the BMW than it had to get back on the bus, and in twenty minutes Rose was pulling up a few houses down from the Reedes' so as not to draw attention to herself. Then she pulled her mobile out of the pocket of her jacket. She had no idea if this would work or not, but she had to at least try. She opened her Internet search engine and typed in MATTHEW REEDE. A lot of results were listed on the screen; she chose the most promising, and breathed a sigh of relief when a picture of a boy five or six years younger than she was appeared on the small screen.

_Hi, welcome to my homepage!_ Read the banner underneath the photo, and after a few seconds of scrolling down the page, looking for clues, she found what she was looking for: A list of phone numbers, including his home phone number. Quickly punching it into her keypad and sending silent thanks that he was enough of an idiot to broadcast his number, she pressed call and put the phone to her ear. After only a few rings, the phone was picked up.

"Hello?" To her disappointment and alarm, it was Sarah Jane's voice on the other end instead of her husband's. _Stay calm. You can do this._ Rose told herself, and took a deep breath before replying.

"Yes, this is the London police department." She lied, putting on her best accent. She had heard Cassandra the Last Human use it when Rose had been possessed by her earlier that year, and was pretty confident of re-enacting it. To her delight, it sounded perfect and completely unlike her. "I'm calling in relation to your son, Matthew Reede."

She had no idea if this was the right way to go about it, but there was no sign of Sarah Jane suspecting her. She just sighed into Rose's ear and said: "What's he done this time?"

"He was, uh…" Rose's mind went suddenly blank. Grasping for ideas, she had a sudden flash of initiative. "It really isn't that easy to explain over the phone. If you'd come and talk to us and collect your son…"

"Of course. I'm so sorry he's been such trouble to you, Miss…"

"Er…" Glancing around for inspiration, Rose said the first thing that came into her head. "Keys – Keystone…Jackie Keystone. And it's fine, he's no bother…well I mean he is, but…get here as quick as possible, please."

"Thank you, Miss Keystone, I will."

"Your husband too, we need to speak to him." Rose hastily added; she had almost forgotten that vital detail. And nearly bit her tongue as she remembered something else. "And don't try ringing his mobile; we had to confiscate all his possessions when we brought him in."

"Yes, I know the drill. We'll be there as soon as we can. Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Mrs. Reede." Rose quickly hung up, breathing hard. Stage one complete - time for stage two. She waited until Sarah and Tobias Reede left the house and got into their car, then another few minutes after the taillights had vanished from the end of the road. It was completely dark now, the only light coming from behind the curtains of other houses on the street, and an occasional car that trundled past.

"Show time," Rose muttered to herself, and got out of the car. Another glance through the letterbox showed the unnatural blue light had vanished from underneath the door, but she was still sure that something was going on in there. And she was pretty sure it had something to do with Mickey's disappearance. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a couple of carefully selected items: two thin pieces of wire.

She gave a quick glance over her shoulder to check nobody was out despite the late hour; even dressed in black, with the hat covering her blonde hair, she was still visible. And it wasn't normal to be picking the locks in the dead of night. When she was sure she was safe, she set to work. With no idea whether she was doing it right, she let go of the card, shoved both pieces of wire into the lock, and rattled them around. Nothing happened. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the time she had been taught how to do this.

She had been fourteen, and somehow her wimp of a boyfriend and a couple of his mates had persuaded her to break into someone's house – an old man who they loved to play pranks on. They told her it was just harmless fun, but she still felt horrible as she slid through the tiny window they were all too big to squeeze through, padded softly to the targeted bureau, and set about picking the lock. Except that she _hadn't._ She had chickened out and left through a side door, leaving Jason and the others shivering outside, waiting for her. He had never forgiven her, but she didn't care. And now she remembered that she had never actually picked the lock – any lock – for nearly six years, and wasn't even successful then.

So she was extremely surprised when there was a faint '_click_', and the door swung open in front of her.


	9. Chapter 9

The first thing Mickey was aware of as he regained consciousness was the smell; a musty damp odour mixed in with something fainter but just as unpleasant. He risked opening his eyes a crack, but it was so dark he couldn't see anything apart from his own body, and realised he was sitting down. Tied up, too, judging by the rope cutting into his wrists and ankles, which seemed to tighten as he struggled to get free. He could feel something sticky on his forehead and caked to the side of his face, and there was a violent throbbing in his temple where the man had struck him.

"Hey!" He croaked, starting to tug at the ropes more violently, but there was no answer, and his voice sounded strangely muffled. _I'm in a cellar,_ he realised. _That weird guy knocked me out and tied me up in his cellar._ The thought filled him with cold fear and hot anger, and he fought the urge to struggle against the ropes again. He waited until the conflicting feelings subsided and then forced his mind blank, thinking hard.

The man needed him for a reason; therefore, he needed him alive. And it wouldn't be long until he came down and hopefully turned on the light. Feeling more fear than relief at having to face the creepy man again, Mickey changed tack_. Rose will notice I'm gone, she'll save me._ This thought had the desired effect; he felt his pulse slow as he calmed down.

Then his heart raced faster as a horizontal chink of light appeared, high up on the opposite wall, and widened - the door opening, letting light fall through and onto the cellar steps. The man's feet came into view below the door as he started down the steps, and Mickey noted irrelevantly that he wore very shiny black shoes. Then he descended, closing the door behind him, and the room was cast back into pitch darkness. Mickey started to wonder whether the man could see in the dark, when the light overhead suddenly blinked into life and he was forced to squeeze his eyelids shut as light burned into his eyes. His head split with agony. He heard the man moving around, but unable to move or look at him, he had no idea what he was doing.

"Who are you?" Mickey spat through gritted teeth as the pain ebbed. He clenched his bound fists behind his back. "What do you want?"

"My name is Tobias." The man replied. He was silent for a few minutes, and Mickey risked opening his eyes slightly. They had just about adjusted to the flickering bulb overhead, and he only had to blink a couple of times before Tobias came into focus. He was standing a few yards away with his back to his prisoner, head bent over something he was holding in his hands, looking at intently. All Mickey saw of him was longish, greasy black hair, falling over the collar of his immaculate black suit.

In front of him, on the other side of the room from where Mickey sat, was a huge object draped in a few stapled together sheets. There was no telling from the shape what it was, but was instantly suspicious. The light above was flashing strangely, and as he glanced up, Mickey spotted a bundle of wires leading from the bulb and disappearing underneath the hidden shape. Tobias was muttering under his breath, and, straining his ears, Mickey could just make out some of what he was saying.

"There…is it enough? It should be enough…" He suddenly froze, then spun round and fixed Mickey with a wicked grin, which coupled with his strangely silvery eyes, made his face sinister, and induced a shiver in his prisoner. The object in his hands was a small rectangular console, like a Gameboy, with an antenna waving erratically from the top. It had started making faint bleeping noises as soon as Tobias focused it on Mickey.

"What's that?" Mickey gasped, curiosity ignited. He tried to lean forward to see the device more closely, but the man snatched it back out of sight, stuffing it into an inside pocket of his suit. Mickey slumped, disappointed. "So, what are you going -"

"Tobias?" It was Sarah Jane's voice, and it came from the top of the stairs, behind the cellar door. "Toby, are you down there?" The door handle rattled, to no avail; Tobias had obviously locked it. The man looked slightly annoyed, but after a few seconds called up to her.

"I'll be right there, dear." Throwing a last glance at Mickey, Tobias mounted the stairs and was at the top in a flash. He unlocked the door, reaching out at the same time to switch the light off. The room was plunged into darkness once more. The door shut with a click, but just before it did, he could have sworn he saw two eyes hovering by the door, glittering with silvery light. Then they swiftly vanished. Mickey shivered as he remembered Tobias' strange silver eyes, and made up his mind. There was no way Tobias was going to let him go – so he would have to escape, now, while he was alone. He stretched his arms backward away from the chair, squeezing his fists. His wrists stung as the rope chafed them, and he bit his lip but didn't stop. He began to slowly wriggle his hands free.

Ten minutes later, the rope fell to the floor behind the chair. Mickey was on his feet in an instant, stumbling slightly from being in the same position so long. He rubbed his wrists absently and felt wetness come away on his fingers. Blood. Wincing from the stinging pain, Mickey carefully set off in what he hoped was the direction of the stairs.

Rose hesitated as the door swung half-open silently, trying to peer inside the hall without making a noise. She was quite sure she hadn't done anything that would unlock the door, and her danger sense was tingling. Heart thumping, Rose slowly stood up, then reached out and gently pushed the door open all the way. There was a scuffle in the hall, and Rose's heart leapt into her mouth. She found herself taking steps backwards, away from the house, and forced her legs to be still, and then to take small steps forwards. As quietly as she could, Rose stepped over the threshold and into the hall, arms tensed and hands curled into tight fists.

The hall was empty, dark and silent. Beginning to relax slightly, Rose took a few more steps, bolder now. As she stopped to glance into the living room, a dark shape slowly emerged from behind the open door and advanced down the hall, making no noise. Until the door banged shut behind him. Rose spun round, heart thudding, and opened her mouth to scream as whoever it was suddenly loomed in front of her, raising what looked like an umbrella to attack…

At the last instant, they recognised each other. Rose swallowed the scream and said, somewhat more shakily than she would have liked, "Mickey?"

"Rose!" Her friend dropped the umbrella. "You're here to rescue me, then?"

"Um, yeah." Rose grinned, pulling him into a hug. "What happened?" She asked as they let go.

"A man -" Mickey began, but they both froze as the lights from a car washed through the window over them.

Rose ran to peer through one of the windows in the door. "Oh God. They're back," she muttered. "I thought we'd have more time…"

"Is it Tobias?" Mickey asked, then answered Rose's unspoken question. "It was him, he knocked me out and -" He was cut short by the sound of car doors slamming, and raised voices.

"You should have known it was a trick! You should have called his mobile! You -"

Mickey swore, and Rose looked round wildly for an escape route. "No time. Follow me." He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the door of the cellar. Flinging the door open, he flicked on the flickering light and gave Rose a push to start her down the stairs, pulling the door shut behind them.

"What -"

"Not now!" He hissed. "Just go!" He waited until she was at the bottom of the steps, then switched off the light. The room plunged into blackness, and Mickey groped his way down the steps, feeling the wall with the hand that didn't still clutch the umbrella. He found Rose's hand again in the darkness and pushed the handle of the umbrella into it.

"Mickey, what -" But he was gone, leaving her alone. Rose crouched against the side of the staircase, where she was invisible from the doorway. Mickey scrabbled for the chair, almost fell over it, threw himself onto the seat and grabbed the ropes, twisting them round his wrists and dropping his arms over the back of the chair. If Tobias didn't look to closely…

The door crashed open and the light exploded. Mickey groaned, trying to look as if he was just waking up. Keeping his eyes almost closed, he watched as Rose flattened herself against the concrete staircase, gripping the umbrella. She gave a wink in his direction, not knowing if he could see her or not, and tensed as she heard Toby begin to descend the stairs towards them.


	10. Chapter 10

"What's going on?" Mickey groaned, opening his eyes. If he could keep the man's attention away from Rose long enough…

"Nothing." Tobias snapped, striding over to where Mickey was pretending to be tied up. Thankfully, he hadn't noticed Rose. Mickey saw her get to her feet and begin to creep up behind the man, holding the hefty umbrella in both hands. Tobias frowned suspiciously and Mickey quickly flicked his gaze away from Rose and back to him.

"What are you – " His silver eyes widened. At the last second, Tobias started to turn – and the already swinging umbrella, instead of hitting the side of his head, smashed into his nose. The man was knocked off balance and fell sideways heavily. He was scrambling up an instant later, his hand clamping on Rose's throat like a vice as she ran to Mickey. Rose found herself pinned against the wall; Tobias's hand was squeezing the air out of her throat, holding her off the floor with more than human strength.

_Well, I was right._ She thought irrationally as dots started dancing in front of her eyes. _He can't be human._ Mickey was struggling to get out of the chair once more. He tripped over the ropes scattered on the floor, stumbled and managed to end up behind Tobias. He grabbed at the man's free arm, but a flick of the wrist sent him skidding across the floor. Rose saw Mickey's head slam into the opposite wall, and his body went limp.

"No!" She gurgled, trying weakly to push Tobias away…

"Toby?" Sarah Jane's voice floated from the top of the stairs. Rose, unable to move her head, swivelled her eyes in the direction of the voice.

"Help…" She gasped, but Sarah seemed too shocked to move. Rose tried to suck in air, but Tobias's hand was cutting off her airways. Faintly, Rose heard Sarah say something sharply, but the words floated away before penetrating her brain. She let herself go limp in Toby's grasp – and found herself crumpling to the floor. Toby's hand was suddenly gone from her neck and Rose gratefully gulped lungfulls of air.

"Toby, what is going on?" Said Sarah Jane's voice, much nearer this time. Rose forced her eyes open and saw a blurry shape. As it came into focus, Sarah became visible, crouched beside the fallen girl.

"Are you all right?" She asked gently, and then rounded on Tobias. "What were you thinking? She's just a girl!"

"She broke into our house, and you're taking her side? She's probably here to steal –"

"Oh be quiet. You know she's not an average burglar, you know exactly who she is. Can you stand?"

It took Rose a second to realise the last part was aimed at her.

"I think so." With the older woman's help, Rose was able to drag herself up. Her head was clearing, and everything came into sharp focus. Including Mickey's crumpled frame. "Mickey!"

She pushed herself towards him, using Sarah Jane as a support. Falling to her knees beside her friend, Rose quickly felt his neck and slumped in relief. "He's alive." But when she took her hand away, there was blood on her fingers, seeping from a gash on his head where he had struck the wall. The girl jumped to her feet, swaying.

"Oh my God. Toby, call an ambulance!" Sarah Jane was backing away from Mickey, a hand over her mouth.

"I don't think so." Tobias's tone was ice cold, and both women turned to him in shock and anger.

"You could've killed him!" Rose exploded at him, taking a shaky step in his direction. Toby held up a hand, his eyes flaring silver. Rose was caught mid-step, unable to move. The man's eyes glowed, boring into her head. A faint whine was coming from somewhere, the sound intensifying until she could hear nothing else. Tobias let go of however he was controlling her, but she couldn't walk if she wanted to. The whining filled her head, seeming to shake the room around her; she fell to her knees, clutching her head. Sarah Jane fell forwards beside her. Rose stared at her body in horror, before the pain in her head became too much and she joined her friends in unconsciousness.

Rose woke up suddenly, jerking forwards. The ropes fastening her arms to those of the chair pulled taut, cutting into her wrists, but she was too busy looking around to notice. Tobias was nowhere to be seen, but Sarah was slumped sideways on her left, tied to another chair, her red-brown hair covering her face. Rose turned to her right, where Mickey was still sitting unconscious. His dark skin had paled, and he was leaning forwards heavily, so she could get a good look at the cut on the back of his head. It wasn't too deep – just a split in the skin from the force with which he'd hit the wall – but it looked painful all the same. The bleeding had stopped, and dried blood matted in Mickey's short black hair. But his chest rose and fell; he was still breathing. Rose heaved a sigh of relief.

Tobias had been hunched under the sheet, concealed from Rose as he tinkered with his mysterious machine. At the noise, he straightened and came into view. His sudden appearance surprised Rose into silence, which didn't last long.

"What the hell are you playing at? Let us go right now, or – "

"Or what?" Tobias asked in his soft, oily voice, and Rose, for once, was lost for words. She realised that there was no Doctor to come to her rescue, that her only hope sat beside her, unconscious; it wasn't like she could count on her pregnant mother or her father with, frankly, more luck than brains, to come rushing in to save the day. She was alone. But she had to say something.

"Or…or I'll scream." She finished lamely.

Tobias smirked, placed his hands on the arms of her chair and leaned forward until his alien eyes filled her vision. "Scream all you want," he murmured, "No one can hear you."

Rose didn't flinch as his sour breath tickled her face. Fear twisted her stomach and clawed at her throat, but she didn't flinch. She glared at Tobias, who smiled pleasantly and took something from the inside pocket of his coat – squinting, Rose saw that it was a sleek metal case, just slightly bigger than a pencil tin. Tobias opened it, and produced a slim syringe. Rose, who hated needles, instantly went faint.

Instead of her, however, Mickey was the alien's target. He left Rose, crouched down beside the unconscious boy and laid the silver case on the floor by his knee. Then he dabbed one of his dark-skinned arms with a swab of cotton, and carefully slid the needle into the skin near the joint of Mickey's elbow. Rose swallowed hard and refused to look away, terrified that her friend was going to be injected with some alien chemical. She needn't have worried – all Tobias did was take a sample of his blood, then delicately pick up a thin glass vial from the metal case to transfer the blood into. He replaced both implements into the case, and snapped it shut. Rose swallowed a sigh of relief, hoping that was it, and feeling slightly guilty that he had chosen Mickey and not her.

"You've got what you wanted. Now let us go." Said Rose, meeting her enemy's stare levelly, and thought something in her tone or expression must have startled him – scared him – into stepping backwards quickly, colliding with his machine. Rose couldn't know that, for a moment, her eyes flashed with an eerie glow to rival Tobias's – but instead of silver, her eyes held a gold light. And in them was something like the gaze of a wolf.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.  
**

Rose blinked, and the effect was gone. Tobias was motionless; his back was pressed against the sheeted machine, his silvery eyes wide with what could only be described as fear. When Rose's eyes returned to their usual deep brown, he let go of the sheet and cleared his throat like he hadn't been clutching it like a comfort blanket. Rose blinked her strangely itching eyes, marvelling at his fear of her.

She was broken from her train of thought by a half groan, half choking cough from her left. Sarah was waking up. Her eyes fluttered open and met Rose's; there was no sign of any lasting effect from whatever Tobias had done to them, and the only difference she could feel herself was a slight grogginess.

"Toby?" She mumbled. "Toby, I had the most horrible dream…" Rose saw her slowly take in her surroundings, husband and his two other prisoners. Then her face crumpled, and she began to sob quietly when she realised that it hadn't been a dream. This would usually be the part when Rose hugged and comforted her, but all she could do was watch helplessly as her old/new friend broke down. Everything Sarah Jane believed in was crumbling around her with no way of stopping it, and Rose knew exactly how she felt and was powerless to help.

"It'll be OK." She promised, whilst hearing how empty and fake it sounded. Sarah Jane could hear it too, and turned her tear-stained gaze on the girl.

"How?" she said simply, and Rose opened her mouth to reply but couldn't find an answer.

"Oh do _shut up_!" Tobias suddenly bellowed at his wife, who flinched as if he had struck her. "I've put up with your whining for twenty years, and I AM DONE!" He punctuated his words with a vicious backhand across the face.

"Oi!" Rose shouted as Sarah tumbled sideways, almost bringing the chair crashing down. She managed to stop herself from falling at the last second, and stared up at her husband through a sheen of tears. Rose twisted sideways to console her; the ropes dug into her wrists but she no longer cared. Tobias paid his wife no attention however, instead, he crossed to Rose and spoke before she had a chance to.

"I would have made do with the boy…but you had to rush in, so heroic, and flash your eyes at me." He shook his head, looked at her, and saw the look of confusion on her face. "Don't feign ignorance. I know it's you, I felt your presence the moment you tried to work your eyes. It's you."

"_What's_ me?" Rose was nonplussed. "You mean a time traveller?"

Tobias smirked. "And so much more. I can see it now. You are the Bad Wolf!"

"Oh," said Rose. "That. Er…yeah, that's me."

Delighted, Tobias let his face stretch into a creepy smile. "And your blood is so much sweeter!" He reopened the case and Rose felt fear trickle down her spine when a clean syringe emerged.

"No, please…" She began, knowing how pathetic she sounded and hating herself for it. She couldn't believe that she had faced Daleks and Slitheen and so many other horrible things, and hadn't gotten over her childhood fear of injections. Tobias' smile widened, and Rose held her face forcibly still. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

"What's wrong?" He said sweetly, crouching down in front of her. "I thought you had a thing for doctors…"

Rose shut her eyes, and felt the pain bite into her arm. She didn't make a noise, but could feel herself trembling. She could imagine the look of mocking on his face, and snapped her eyes open. Dark blood bloomed into the glass of the syringe, and she stared at it without blinking.

The needle slid out of her arm, and she felt nothing but a slight twinge as it came free of her skin. It was as if her fear, her anger, everything that made her vulnerable, had been extracted with her blood. Rose was relieved; to do this, live her life, go up against these monsters alone…she had to be more than human. She had to be the Bad Wolf.

She watched, emotionless, as Tobias took both vials and headed towards the machine. Holding the vials between the long fingers in his left hand, the man raised his right and grasped the sheet covering his contraption. It hummed under his palm – as if it was impatient for Tobias to do whatever it was he was going to do. Then, in one sweeping gesture, he whisked the sheet off the tall bulk, and Rose saw the machine for the first time. The sight of it nearly made her pass out.

It was the TARDIS – not the wooden box exterior, but the central column from inside. It was identical to the one inside the TARDIS she knew and loved, down to the last dial on the control panel. The pillar of green light glowed, but wasn't moving; it only did that when it was in flight.

"How did you…what…" Rose was shaken to the core. Her mind reeling, a hundred agonising memories collided inside her head, memories of the Doctor standing at that very console, enthusiastically flicking switches and turning dials. It was all too much. Rose shut her eyes and sobbed, letting her emotions pour out. It was the first time she'd cried since that day at Bad Wolf Bay; she had been like a shell, walking and talking, automatically doing everything she was supposed to, but not really alive. Now, faced with the thing she wanted most in the world, she found the strength to cry.

Eventually, the tears dried up, and Rose could open her eyes once more. She discovered Sarah Jane had edged her chair sideways so that Rose could bury her head in her shoulder, and the older woman was smiling kindly down at her. Rose sat up, feeling more grateful than embarrassed, and gave Sarah a shaky smile. She felt drained and exhausted, as if she had just run a mile.

"Are you quite finished? Can we get on?" Tobias was examining his fingernails, an uninterested expression on his sickly face. The two women glared at him.

"You were always cold, Toby, but I never imagined you were so empty to watch a girl cry and be…bored!" Sarah Jane snapped. Rose couldn't imagine how hard this must be for her, to find out that her husband was so malevolent. She had never thought that the monsters she would have to fight would be so close to home. Tobias turned on her, hissing through his sharp little teeth.

"If you had _any idea_ what I've gone through…but you humans, you're too selfish, too wrapped up in your own problems…ARGH!" He suddenly struck out, catching Sarah on the side of the head. She slumped back in her chair, all but unconscious.

"What the hell – why did you do that!" Rose demanded, livid. Her arms strained against the ropes, sheer anger giving her strength. Tobias flashed her a look of contempt, and didn't reply.

"Are you going to hit us, is that it? You're just going to beat us up, for no reason?" Rose changed tack, figuring she might as well try to intimidate him into telling her what she needed to know. "What are you going to do with our blood?"

"I suppose there isn't much harm in me telling you; after all, you are going to help me do it…" Tobias smiled.

"I am, am I?" Rose muttered, but Tobias didn't seem to hear. He was in a world of his own; his eerie eyes stared past Rose, as if he was watching something happen over her shoulder, and he finally began to speak in a soft, sad voice.

"If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it? If a Time Lord murders his species, is he still a Time Lord?"

"What are you going on about?" Rose interrupted; she didn't have time for riddles. The look Tobias turned on her was not one of anger; instead, it was the look the Doctor got when reminiscing about his past. It almost made her wish she hadn't said anything.

"The Time War," Tobias continued, after a moment's hesitation. "It was the end of the Time War, when the doors between parallel worlds were still open. Your Doctor and I, we're not so different. In fact, we fought side by side in the War, and when he told me of his plan, instead of helping him like he wanted, I fled like the coward I am. I fled to this world, and shut the gate behind me, sealing this world from the Doctor's, forever."

"So you're the reason – if you'd stayed, fought, it could have all turned out different…you could have saved them -"

"Yes, I admit I was a coward," the man interrupted, "but no more so than the Doctor himself. His race - _our_ race fought bravely, but he took the easy way out. He chose to kill them all."

"His people, and the Daleks. There wasn't anything else he could have done. You're twisting it all round -"

"Oh, and you know better, I suppose? You've heard it all from your precious Doctor, no doubt." His eyes suddenly flashed angrily, and he spun away from Rose, placing his hands on the control panel and leaning heavily. "Poor, poor Doctor. His entire species, exterminated in a single strike, and he is the only survivor. Well, now you know different." 

He dropped the two vials into holders on the edge of the control panel, and as he spoke, his hands flashed across the table, connecting wires and crocodile clips to the tubes of blood. The other ends of the wires he connected to box similar to the large batteries Rose had used in Chemistry classes in school. There was a large dial, with numbers from 0 – 100 beside the sockets for the wires. He took two more wires with round pads on the ends, and attached them to the lifeless Sarah's temples. She didn't seem to notice; she was hunched in her chair like a discarded doll, oblivious to her surroundings.

Rose watched all this in silent fury, Tobias' words ringing in her head, until he turned once more to face her.

"So, you're mad at him, you think he shouldn't have done it. You want to kill him?"

A smile tugged at the corners of Tobias' mouth. "Of course not," he scoffed. "He and I, we are so alike. Lost, alone in this world, searching for a true home…he thinks he is the last of the Time Lords, but he is wrong. He thought I died that day, but he is wrong. I need to find him, but not for the reasons you suppose. I don't want to kill the Doctor; I want to _help_ him!

"And, thanks to your blood, I am going to find someone to tell me how!"


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

Tobias grabbed the dial on the control panel next to the vials, and twisted it to 50. Then he grabbed a lever and pulled it. The pillar of light fizzed, and sparks danced across the surface, down the wires and over Sarah's face. She woke up, her eyes flying open as what looked like blue electric sparks disappeared into her skull through the wires, down her ears, nose, mouth, and even the corners of her eyes. The shock threw her chair backwards with a crash, and the wires were yanked from her forehead. One of them whipped back across to the pillar and control table, and there was a flash, a sizzle, and then smoke billowed from the machine and filled the room.

The machine caught fire, and to Rose's horror, the flames were somehow swept from the mushroom-like structure onto her jacket. Luckily, it caused the ropes on her wrists to catch fire, and they dropped off. Searing pain shot through her wrists, but at least she was free. Hastily slapping the fire on her arms to put it out, trying to ignore the intense pain in her hands as she did so, Rose took advantage of the confusion and hastily untied the ropes around her ankles. Tobias flung his jacket over the flames on the machine, desperately beating at the spreading fire with his bare hands. Seeing that he was preoccupied, Rose stumbled to her feet. Her legs cramped after so long sitting in the same position, but Rose ignored the added pain and threw herself towards Mickey.

"Mickey?" she slapped his face, relief filling her as his eyes flicked open and focused on Rose's face.

"Rose?" he mumbled. "What's…going on?"

"No time to explain. Come on, we've got to get out of here!" She grabbed hold of his arms and tried to drag him to his feet, but he was too heavy, and not awake enough to get up himself. Rose heaved, and the two of them almost managed it, but then Toby sent blow to the back of her head, which sent Rose sprawling. She landed heavily beside Sarah Jane, and saw the older woman struggling to open her eyes and sit up.

"Sarah! Are you OK?" Rose managed to gasp, though the smoke was beginning to burn her lungs.

"Rose?" Sarah mumbled in reply, but at that moment, Tobias grabbed the girl by her collar and dragged her backwards. Rose struggled furiously, but the alien – or, Time Lord, if he was telling the truth – was too strong. He would have succeeded in whatever he was trying to do, if Mickey hadn't chosen that moment to crack a chair over Tobias' back.

The Time Lord screeched in pain and fury, and dropped Rose, who fell to her knees. Tobias made a lunge for her, but Mickey cannoned into him, knocking him off his feet. The two of them crashed to the stone floor. As Rose scrambled away, coughing violently on the smoke, her foot bumped something on the floor. She twisted round, and saw that it was the prone form of Sarah Jane. Rose clawed her way to her side and started to untie her, all the while expecting Tobias to seize her and haul her backwards once more. Mickey, however, was busy keeping him occupied, using the thick smoke to his advantage. Tobias had succeeded in putting out the fire, but the smoke, with nowhere to escape to, was still heavy in the air. Mickey ducked and weaved, dodging the clumsy punches and working his way across the basement, hoping the Time Lord would follow him away from Rose.

But when the man stumbled backwards up the first few stairs to the main house, he realised Mickey's plan, and in drawing Tobias away from the machine, he had led him out of the worst of the smoke. Mickey found himself in plain view, and before he knew what was happening, Tobias had wrestled his back down the stairs. Mickey tried to resist the larger man, but Tobias' superior strength drove him to the floor. He ended up pinned to the floor on his stomach, with one arm twisted behind his back and what felt like Tobias' knee in his back, weighing him down so he couldn't move.

"R -" he started to croak, but Toby's hand suddenly clamped on his throat, cutting off his air. Black spots began to swim across his vision.

_This is it_, he thought, _I'm going to die_. In sheer desperation, Mickey closed his eyes.

Rose saw Sarah Jane jump to her feet, suddenly sure of herself. The older woman took in the scene – Mickey on the floor, Tobias looming over him – then leapt to the table, grabbed a handful of wires, and pulled. They snapped with an angry crackle of electricity. Sarah took hold of the longest, and slammed the broken end against Tobias' unprotected throat.

The shock tore through both him and Mickey, but the alien got the full blast, and was thrown sideways. He stumbled to his feet almost at once, but it was enough to allow Mickey the chance to get to his feet. Tobias' hair was sticking on end from the shock. In any other situation, Rose would have laughed, but the look he shot the three of them was so malicious it sent chills through her. He took a step forwards, but Sarah brandished the still fizzing wire.

"Rose?" she said, and there was something different in her voice, in her stance, in her eyes. Though she knew it was impossible, Rose was sure that this women, so sure and strong, facing down Tobias, was a different Sarah Jane than the one who had answered the door, what seemed like days ago.

"Yeah?" replied Rose, somewhat shakily.

"How did I get here? Who is this?" And then, when Rose could only gape in shock: "Where's the Doctor?"


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

It was five o'clock in the morning, and the sun was creeping over the horizon, casting its rays over awakening London. There weren't many people about, but those that were bustled along the near-empty streets, glugging coffee and trying not to drop their briefcase, newspaper and paper cup when they yawned.

For Jackie Tyler, this was not a good time of day. As if being six months pregnant wasn't enough, she woke up each morning so early the sun hadn't had a chance to reach the house, and today was no exception. To top it all, Rose and Mickey hadn't arrived back yet, and she just knew they were up to something…Doctorish. She could feel it.

Jackie vented her anger and frustration on the kitchen in general, banging things down on the counters and slamming cupboard doors as hard as she could, to remind Pete, two floors and seven rooms away, that she was not a morning person. It was working. After ten minutes of making nothing except a lot of noise, her bleary-eyed husband appeared at ther doorway, wearing pyjama bottoms a dressing gown and slippers. He yawned.

"You took your time," she snapped, plonking a bowl down and tipping Cornflakes in the same rough direction. Flakes of golden corn scattered across the floor.

"Sorry Jacks, but I don't really need to get up for another -"

"Don't expect me to make you breakfast, either. Honestly, you men are all the same!"

"I didn't ask for -" Pete tried to derail her, but his wife had got into her stride.

"Mickey's just as bad. You know he's had our daughter out all night, without so much as a phone call?"

"Our daughter." Pete smiled as he sidled up behind Jackie and put his arms round her. "I'm never gonna get used to hearing that."

"Believe me, you will after twenty years of -"

"Hang on," Pete interrupted. "You mean they didn't get back last night."

"That's what I'm saying. If you ask me -"

"But the Mini's in the garage."

"What? It can't be. I'm telling you, they aren't here."

Five minutes later they were standing at the door leading to the garage from the main house, opposite the unmistakable blue Mini. There was no sign of anything amiss; none of the locks or windows were broken, and the key was hanging innocently on the rack of hooks next to the door.

"I'll try Rose's mobile." Jackie decided after a moment. She fished her phone out of the pocket of her pink dressing gown. After punching in a number, they held the phone between them and waited for their daughter to answer. It rang a dozen times, then went to the answerphone. Jackie hung up in despair, and tried Mickey instead. A few seconds later, the car started ringing.

Pete swore, grabbed the key from next to him and unlocked the car. Mickey's mobile lay on the floor underneath the driver's seat. He bent to retrieve it, and his hand brushed against something else beneath the seat. Shoving the mobile into his pocket, Pete grabbed the other object and pulled it out.

It was a gun.

"Oh my God!" Jackie exclaimed, grabbing his elbow.

"Careful!" Pete jerked the gun out of danger. He had never really handled one before, preferring the business side of running Torchwood, and even the sight of firearms made Pete nervous. To actually hold a gun made him feel slightly queasy. He carefully laid the gun on the driver's seat and backed away, slamming the car door. Jackie put her arms round him and buried her head in his shoulder. He hugged her absentmindedly, feeling sick with fear.

"They're in trouble, aren't they?" said Jackie into Pete's shoulder.

"Yeah,"he replied.


	14. Chapter 14

** I think this is the longest chapter I've written for this fic so far. My fingers wouldn't stop.  
Oh no, another head wound. My next one won't have any, I promise.  
Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.**

Chapter 14:

As Rose stared at Sarah Jane, questions flitting through her head so fast she didn't have time to voice them, Tobias made his move. He was so quick there was no chance to stop him or even blink. One moment, Sarah was wielding a spitting wire at him like a weapon; the next, Tobias was behind her with one arm around her neck. The other arm held the same thick wire a hand's breadth away from her bare arm. 

"You see, Rose, Mickey? You see now?" he waved the wire at his hostage, but she didn't flinch, which was strange. Tobias carried on talking in an urgent, almost crazed level of voice. "You know, it's not your body or what you look like that makes you who you are. It's all in the brain! Every human being has a signature brainwave pattern; it's like a fingerprint, there's no way to imitate it. But two worlds, two Sarah Janes, means two sets of identical brainwaves…"

He reminded Rose more than ever of the Doctor. The frantic tone in his voice took her to an image of the Doctor as he peered intently at something through his glasses, and rattled off a long and complicated explanation for something that she wouldn't understand in a million years.

"What…what are you talking about? What have you done?" Rose was shared a horrified glance with Mickey, and saw that he had drawn the same conclusion as she had. But it was impossible. He couldn't possibly mean…

"Yes!" he saw it in her face: the understanding, the realisation. "You understand, don't you? I took my lovely wife -" he smiled down at the woman he was holding prisoner, and the scariest thing was the actual fondness in his eyes. "I took Sarah Jane's brainwave pattern, and switched it with one identical to it. There wasn't one exactly the same in this universe, so my TARDIS had to improvise. It's very good at that – but you know that as well, don't you?"

"Your TARDIS?" asked Rose and Sarah at the same time. Mickey could only gawp.

"Yes," Tobias made a circling gesture with the hand holding the wire, careful not to touch Sarah Jane. "You're standing in it. Surely you felt it, when you first crossed the threshold?"

Rose nodded slowly; she hadn't registered it at the time, but now that she thought about it she could sense a tingling sensation deep inside, which she hadn't noticed before. The reason she hadn't, she realised, was because it was the feeling she used to have when she was with the Doctor or in the old TARDIS, and she hadn't noticed the difference. That is, up until the last few weeks, when there had been a sense of such emptiness that she couldn't describe, like something inside her was broken or missing. And now it was back; it had slipped inside, back where it belonged, like a part of her. This whole house was a TARDIS, of course; she should have guessed the moment Tobias said he was a Time Lord.

"Wait a minute," Sarah interrupted. "A TARDIS? You have a TARDIS?" She looked like she was about to cry, which was exactly the same as Rose's reaction. "Where did you get it? Did you steal it?" she challenged.

"He's a Time Lord." Rose found it easier to believe; now she knew he had a TARDIS and he hadn't just stolen or replicated the central column. "The second to last of them. He escaped the Time War, just like the Doctor." Rose didn't say, "fled"; though the word was on the tip of her tongue. Somehow, she could still relate to him, even after everything he had done. The Doctor must have done things as drastic as this in his 900 years, and she could imagine what she would feel like if it were he, and not Tobias. She would stick by him. That wasn't what she was going to do here, but she could still not bring herself to make that one extra jibe.

Then Sarah Jane realised what else he had said. "Another world? I'm in another world?" she cried. "But that's impossible! Travel between universes hasn't been…"

Then her eyes met Rose's.

"The Doctor found a way, didn't he? He found a way to travel between universes…?"

"No." Rose muttered. "He isn't here. It's just me."

"But…" Sarah began, then understood. "Oh, Rose. I'm so sorry."

Rose nodded. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes, but she didn't let them out. She had cried enough.

"And now I have what I wanted…" Tobias shoved Sarah Jane onto the nearest chair, without taking his eyes off Mickey and Rose, or letting go of the wire. "Now start talking," he ordered. "Where is the Doctor? How can I get to him?"

"You can't." it was Rose who answered. Tobias waved his free hand, meaning to shush her, but she ploughed ahead. "I'm telling you, you can't. Don't you think I would have by now, if it was possible?"

Tobias didn't answer, just jabbed the wire in Sarah's direction.

"She's telling the truth," the older woman sighed wearily. "It's impossible. Now put that down, and let me go back to my own body, my own world. My son will be wondering where I am."

"You have a son?" asked Rose.

"Yes, he's adopted. His name is Luke." replied Sarah, then smiled. "You look surprised."

"I am. You never…I mean, you never said."

"Of course not. The last time I saw you, I hadn't met him yet. He's not human, of course. Not entirely, anyway." She laughed, clearly fond of Luke.

"But wait a minute, if you're here, that means Sarah Jane – the other Sarah Jane – she'll be in your body. So he won't notice you've gone…" even as she spoke, Rose realised how stupid she sounded. Of course Sarah's son would notice the difference. She, Rose, who hardly knew either Sarah, had noticed within moments of the change.

"Rose," Mickey suddenly interrupted, and she looked at him. He nodded towards Tobias, who was standing next to Sarah Jane's chair with a look of confused anger on his face. He hadn't even tried to stop their interaction, too wrapped up in his own thoughts. He seemed to snap out of it when he saw that all eyes were on him.

"Yes, well, that's as well may be." he snapped, which didn't make any sense to Rose. Flustered, he waved the wire half-heartedly at his "wife". "So, where is he then?"

"But you can't -" Rose tried to interject, but took a step back when Tobias thrust the wire at her.

"Where. Is. The. Doctor." he said quietly to Sarah without moving his eyes from Rose.

"I…I haven't seen him since…" Sarah began, then trailed off, remembering.

"Since Deffry Vale School? Since we beat the Krillitanes?" Mickey offered, but Sarah shook her head.

"No, wait. I saw him again, more recently than that. It was surveillance footage from outside a club in London. Torchwood picked it up because of the TARDIS, and Mr. Smith – that's my computer – tapped into their network. I would have gone myself, but knowing him, he'd have been gone by the time I got there."

"That's one hell of a computer," Mickey observed but Rose shushed him.

"What was he doing? Was he OK?" she pleaded. "Did he look happy?"

The sorrow in Sarah Jane's eyes was profound. "Not entirely," she said. "He looked…lost. I couldn't figure out why, at the time. There was a girl with him, you see. The picture was grainy; I thought it was you."

"A girl," Rose murmured, "He found someone else." she knew she should feel annoyed or cheated, but all she felt was a weary calm that spread through her body and settled in her bones. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was sleep. "At least…at least he's not on his own," she said dreamily. "He's not alone."

Mickey put his arm around her and she leant against him gratefully.

"He's not alone." someone echoed, and Rose was astonished to see Tobias take a step away from Sarah Jane, lowering the arm holding the sparking wire. He staggered backwards and slumped against the wall, looking like a broken man who had nothing to live for, no purpose in life. Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, was more like the Doctor than she had wanted to admit; but it was there in his strange, silver eyes. It was the same look the Doctor had that day at Bad Wolf Bay, the last time she had ever seen him; a look of empty, hopeless loss.

"All this time," he muttered. "I've looked for him all my life, and..."

"Now's our chance," Mickey hissed in Rose'sear. "While he's not looking."

Rose turned to him, and he knew what she would say even before she did.

"I can't."

Mickey looked over her shoulder at the alien, then gazed at Rose for what seemed like a long time, though only seconds passed. Finally, he leaned forwards and gently brushed her lips with his. It felt like an apology.

"I can," he replied softly, and lunged at the machine.

"No!" Rose yelled; but it was too late. Mickey twisted the dial as far as it would go, then yanked the lever down with all his strength. It clanked into place and snapped off at the base, making it impossible to reverse the action. The machine trembled, and sparks flickered across the control panel. Tobias sprang towards it, scrabbling at the now useless dial. The pillar began to shake, and suddenly the glass casing smashed as the shuddering became more violent. Glass showered over everything.

"Go!" shouted Mickey. He shoved Rose towards the stairs, and she stumbled forwards. The smoke surrounded her, making it hard to tell which way she was going. Blundering blindly, she almost fell over Sarah Jane, who had lifted the chair and was trying to hit Tobias with it. Rose grabbed her and dragged her away, and by sheer good fortune, tripped onto the first step. She motioned for Sarah to go past, and she complied. Rose followed close after. Mickey was behind Rose, trying to push her onwards, but she suddenly froze, unable to tear her eyes from Tobias. He was draped over the control table, clinging to the pillar like a lifeline. The captain, going down with his ship. Rose couldn't help feeling guilty for what had happened – and what she could tell was about to happen. She could sense it; the power building, desperate to be released.

Sarah Jane reappeared at the top of the stairs, dragging at Rose's arms. Rose forced herself to stumble up out of the basement, and the three of them tumbled into the hallway and out of the front door.

They burst onto the street, which was lit by watery morning sunlight. There wasn't a cloud in sight; it was going to be a swelteringly hot day. But none of them noticed the weather, and neither did the other people looking out of windows to see what all the fuss was about. Rose, Mickey and Sarah spun round to look at the house. It was shaking in its foundations; dust was raining from the walls, broken glass from the windows littered the drive, and roof tiles were smashing to the ground, so close that Sarah had to pull her two friends backwards out of harms way.

The fiasco had alerted the neighbours, and soon everyone on the street was watching the spectacle, dressed in pyjamas and dressing gowns. A police car had appeared from somewhere, and two more appeared a second later – along with a familiar blue Mini that skidded haphazardly to a stop ten feet away. A familiar couple scrambled out of it and began to run towards them; Jackie and Pete, oblivious to the danger they were in.

"Get back!" Rose yelled, and Mickey and Sarah joined in, waving at the nosy neighbours to get away. "Get away, it's going to -"

She was too late. The whole house suddenly exploded in a burst of flames, bricks, and a huge cloud of dust and smoke that erupted outwards towards them. Rose, Sarah and Mickey, the closest to the blast, caught the full force and were thrown across the street.

Rose blacked out momentarily, and when she came to, all around her was chaos. Screams rang in her ears, and she couldn't stop coughing. All she could see was smoke, and then a pair of strong arms scooped her up as Mickey cradled her to his chest.

"Rose!" he shouted, but she couldn't hear him. There was a stinging in the back of her head, and something warm and wet filled her mouth and dribbled between her lips.

"No!" yelled her friend as he heaved himself to his feet, hugging Rose's body against him. Absent-mindedly, Rose raised a hand to her head, and blood came away on it, thick, dark and red. She gazed at it in puzzlement, but was struck with a wave of dizziness. Rose let her head loll against Mickey's shoulder and knew no more.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.**

---------------------------------------------

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Rose awoke to the monotonous bleeping of a machine somewhere overhead. Sleep tried to call her back, but she dragged herself away and opened her eyes. They fixed on a white ceiling, and then she lowered her head to see the blurry shape of a hospital bed, stretching away from her, and the lumpy shapes of her legs and feet under the pink blanket. She slowly turned her head to the side, and was rewarded with a view of a row of identical beds leading away from her. She was in hospital? She couldn't quite remember what had happened. Maybe she had been in an accident; there was a horrible pounding in her head, and an even worse pain in her hands. She raised an arm to her forehead, causing agony to spike through her palms and fingers. She quickly dropped her hands, and that was when she saw the bandages wrapped round them.

"What?" she mumbled, staring blankly at the bulky wrappings. A memory tried to swim its way up through her muddled brain, but it was gone before she could grasp it. Something had happened to her hands, but what? Another thought came to her then, of someone's voice, and the smell of burning flesh. She remembered her sleeves catching fire, and hitting the flames with her hands. So that was it. But what happened after that, and before? Where had the fire come from?

The whole picture hit her with such force it sent her head reeling. Tobias, Sarah Jane, Mickey…

Mickey. He had carried her somewhere, after the house exploded. She had rested her cheek against his chest, and drifted into sleep or unconsciousness. She remembered blood on her hands, red on stark white – was it hers or his?

"Mickey!" Rose suddenly cried, terrified, and then broke into a fit of coughing. Her eyes streamed and her throat burned as coughs racked her ragged lungs. As the coughs subsided and Rose slumped forwards, shuddering, a hand holding a glass of water appeared in front of her and helped her to drink. Rose gulped down half of the contents and then collapsed back onto the pillows, drained.

"How are you feeling?" said a man's voice. Rose looked up at him through beads of moisture, and for one wild moment was sure it was the Doctor.

"Doctor?"

"No, love. It's your Dad." He sat down beside her on the bed and took her hand, and as Rose's blinked Pete's worried frown came into focus. "How are you feeling?" he repeated.

"Oh, fantastic," she joked, and smiled weakly. Pete didn't smile back. Rose suddenly went cold. "Where's Mickey?"

"He's gonna be fine," Pete let go of her hand to gesture at the bed across from Rose's, and with a wave of relief, she saw Mickey's familiar form slumped against the pillows. Then she saw the wires leading from his arm and nose and the bandage round his head, and the relief turned to worry. She glanced at her father anxiously.

"How long has he been like that?"

"He wakes up every few hours to ask how you are, but apart from that he's been asleep for three days. He has a concussion, but no lasting damage. Should be all right, no thanks to you."

Rose looked at her dad to see if he was joking, but his usually kind blue eyes were as hard as flint. "What do you mean?"

"You should have called me as soon as he went missing, but you had to act the big hero, rush in and get everyone blown up. Your mother's been sick with worry; I only persuaded her to leave your side a few hours ago. Of course, she blames herself for not raising you better."

"But…" Rose didn't know what to say. She stared at her hands, twisting the blanket between her bandaged paws. "I didn't think,"

"Obviously not." Rose hated the tone in his voice. She hadn't even known him for six months and her father already thought she was a complete idiot.

"I just…I'm used to doing it all myself, you know?" she tried to explain, avoiding his eyes. "We never have – had – backup or anything, it was just me and the Doctor. I thought…I thought I could handle it."

"You nearly got yourself killed," Pete said bitterly, and at last Rose managed to look at him. He didn't meet her eyes, choosing instead to stare at his chewed fingernails.

"I'm sorry…" she tried to say, and Pete finally looked at her. His eyes were full of tears.

"You're not invincible, you know. You're not the Doctor. You can't just rush into these things and expect nobody will get hurt," he muttered. "I've only known you for a few months, and I nearly lost you already. It's not fair to your mother or me to keep on doing this, keep pretending you're still with him."

"I'm not…" Rose was too surprised to continue. That wasn't what she was doing at all. She ran to save Mickey because she didn't have the Doctor. She would never have the Doctor again, and she wanted to know that she could still live the only life she knew. But, as it turned out, she couldn't. She didn't say any of this, because he would never understand. He had never known the Doctor, so he didn't know what it was like to be alone. "I'm sorry," she said again, and Pete quickly took her hand and squeezed it.

"I know," he whispered, in a way that made her think that maybe he did understand after all. "Oh, Sarah Jane's fine, by the way," he added before she could say anything. "Whatever Tobias did to her, it wasn't meant to last. She's back to normal."

"Oh. That's good." Rose tried to sound pleased. She had been meaning to ask about Sarah Jane, but now that she knew the answer she couldn't help feeling disappointed. She would have liked the switch to last just a bit longer. She knew it was selfish, but she longed for someone to talk to; someone outside her family, who knew how it felt.

"You know, it would have been better if you'd just let us handle it," the accusatory tone was back in Pete's voice. "I have people who would have handled it quietly. If you'd waited for backup, called us as soon as you thought something was wrong, we might even have a body to bring back.

"What?" Rose's head, which had been sinking lower and lower during her father's speech, suddenly shot up. "There's no body?"

"Well, after that explosion we never expected to find a body. We found parts of his machine – a ludicrous mushroom-shaped thing from what we could assemble of the remains – but there was no trace of Tobias. It looks like it was completely incinerated. It's really too bad; it was like nothing we've encountered before. We were counting on a body to determine what kind of alien it was."

"Sarah Jane didn't tell you?"

"She didn't know. From what she told us, he has basic psychic abilities – he was able to knock you out just by looking at you?"

"Yeah," Rose lied, realising that he must have disturbed their brainwaves in some way using his TARDIS – not psychic powers at all.

"And he must be a shape-shifter – or almost humanoid."

"Really, it was only his eyes that gave him away. They were like, silver. And they glowed. I think he channelled his psychic power through his eyes." Rose added, deciding to throw him off the scent entirely, for reasons she wasn't entirely sure of. On one hand, the work Pete and Torchwood were doing would do nothing but help the human race. But on the other hand…Tobias was a Time Lord, like the Doctor, and Rose hated hearing Pete refer to him as "it". Whatever he had done – kidnapped Mickey, betrayed his wife – it was to help another of his kind. Tobias was the same as her father, whatever Pete might think, and Rose couldn't give up the secret he had worked so hard to cover up. She couldn't let Torchwood run their tests and experiments on him – she just couldn't.

"And you're sure it never mentioned anything, about what it was or what it wanted?"

Rose bent her head, apparently deep in thought. Blonde hair covered her face, hiding any trace of guilt. "He hardly ever spoke. I have no idea where he's from, sorry."

Pete sighed, trying not to let his dismay show. "That's all right, don't worry. I'm sure something will turn up." He stood up absently and turned to go, after giving his daughter's shoulder a final pat. Then he turned back in second thought.

"I'm sorry to have to say this, love," he began, "but you have to understand. I'm your father, but I'm also your boss, and while you're working at Torchwood you have to do as I tell you." Rose opened her mouth to argue, but Pete cut her off with a shake of his head. "And that means no more running off, putting yourself in danger."

Rose turned away to hide the sudden tears that threatened to spill. She lay down with her back to him and closed her eyes, hoping Pete would get the message.

Pete sat beside Rose for a while, until her breathing deepened and she seemed to fall asleep. He reached forwards and gently brushed a strand of hair away from his daughter's face, then stood up and quietly walked away. He cast a swift glance at Mickey to see if he had woken up, but the young man was deeply asleep, still exhausted from his trials. Pete quickened his pace and strode from the ward, his thoughts already turning to Jackie, who he had left in the hospital cafeteria.

When Rose was sure he had gone, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling once more. Pete's words rang clear in her memory as she mulled things over. Then, for the first time in what felt like years, a smile broke onto her face.

Rose knew exactly what she had to do.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: I promised myself this would be the last chapter...but the bit I wanted to put at the end was too long. So there's an Epilogue as well. Haha!**

Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC. 

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The box contained a framed photograph, a few dog-eared sheets of paper, a packet of biscuits, two half-full notebooks, a stapler, and the end of a tube of Polos. Looking down at the remains of her career, Rose felt slightly sad. The objects said almost nothing about her, yet once they were gone there would be no sign that she had ever been there.

Then again, maybe that was for the best.

Resolutely, Rose picked up the box from her now vacant desk and headed for the lifts at the other end of the floor. It was late - so late the cleaners had finished for the night and gone home. They had left a couple of lights on for late workers, but apart from that the office was dark. Shadows gathered in the corners, draped across desks and filing cabinets. It would have been spooky, if Rose was still afraid of anything that hid in the gloom.

She was halfway to the lift doors, the box balanced precariously against her hip, when a movement caught the corner of her eye. She spun round, instantly alert, but could see nothing. The empty room stretched away from her, reminding her of the late hour. Rose told herself she was just tired, and was about to turn back around when it happened again. Something was moving in the darkness. Rose welcomed the rush of adrenaline, and stuck a hand into the pocket of her coat.

"Come on then," she called, "Come out, whoever you are."

"Well, it took you long enough," came the reply, and a man stepped into view.

Rose instantly went weak; the box slipped from her fingers, contents spilling at her feet. He looked different, younger, thirties instead of late forties, with short blonde hair and a smattering of freckles on his pale cheeks. His eyes gave him away, that and his clothes - he was still wearing the black suit, and it was a bit too big for his body. It hung off him in a way that made him look like a kid dressing up in his dad's clothes. But his eyes still shone silver, out of place in his boyish face, and didn't reach his lopsided grin.

"Surprise," said Tobias.

"You regenerated." said Rose. It wasn't a question, but he answered anyway.

"Guess so." her nemesis made to step closer, but Rose brought the hand out of her pocket. Clenched in her fist was a slim metal tube with a blue light at the end.

"Don't move." she commanded, but her voice gave a treacherous quiver. She flourished the sonic screwdriver, and added, in the voice of someone who has done her homework, "It's on setting 235/B."

"I suppose that's meant to mean something?" Tobias smirked. "Where did you get that? It's so…retro."

"Oi! This is top of the range!" Rose retorted. "I made it."

"You _made_ it?"

"Well, I designed it. The outer bit." Rose flushed. "Science did the technical. It doesn't work as well as the original, but…" she stopped. Tobias was trying to stop a smile from creeping onto his face, so she decided to try a more direct approach. "So, did you regenerate before or after the TARDIS exploded?" she asked harshly. The smirk vanished.

"After." There was no trace of fun in his voice now; Rose wished she hadn't been so cruel.

"How did you escape?"

Tobias didn't speak for a moment, and when he did, it wasn't to answer the question. "You and I, we aren't so different. We're both of us trying to survive in a strange world, doing the only thing we can to cling onto the life we knew…"

"We are nothing alike." Rose argued, knowing that he was right. It had no effect; Tobias kept talking as if he hadn't noticed the interruption.

"That's why I came here. Once Torchwood finds out I'm alive, there's no escape. They'll track me down, whatever my disguise. I need someone on the inside – which is where you come in. I thought if I could help you, you might show some mercy."

"You can't help me," said Rose forcefully. "No-one can."

"I can try." Slowly, keeping his eyes on the sonic screwdriver in her hand, Tobias crouched down and picked something up from the floor near his feet. It was the photograph that had fallen out of the box of belongings. He threw it to Rose, who caught it one-handed.

"Look at it."

Sceptically, Rose did as she was told. There were two people in the photograph, standing in front of a temple on another world. One of them was the person who made her heart clench whenever she imagined his tousled hair and twinkling eyes. The other…was her. Not the Rose she saw in the mirror each morning, who had rings under her eyes from four months of sleepless nights. Not the Rose who dragged herself through every day, wishing she was somewhere else. The pictured Rose was exactly where she wanted to be. Her eyes were shining, and there was a broad grin on her face. She looked happy.

"I can help you." Tobias said gently. Rose looked up from the photo, eyes smarting, and was surprised to see he was standing next to her. One hand was on her arm; the other was holding something out to her. It was a folded piece of paper.

Rose reached out and took it. "What's this?"

"Remember a few weeks ago, Torchwood intercepted a transmission, written in a language not even you could understand?"

"Of course," Rose looked down at the paper in her hand, realisation suddenly dawning. "You translated it?"

"Torchwood were having no luck, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's no wonder you couldn't read it; it's written in a dead language, so old it's not even a language any more. Only one person in the universe knows it."

"You?"

"Me."

"So what's the language?" asked Rose in a whisper, not daring to believe. Her hands were trembling. "Who sent it?"

"He sent it, of course." Tobias replied. "It's from the Doctor."

Rose felt her knees buckle. Tobias grabbed her, a second too late. The two of them sank to the floor.

"How?" was all she could manage. Her head was spinning.

"I don't know for sure," came Tobias's reply from far away. "I can only imagine that he was able to temporarily distort the walls between the universes, enough to get a message through. He made sure Torchwood would pick it up, but put it in another language no-one except another Time Lord could understand. I suppose he just took a gamble on you speaking Galli – Rose? Are you all right?" She was shaking in his arms.

"Bad Wolf Bay," Rose whispered. Tears were trickling down her face. "He sent a…I don't know what it was…a projection, a ghost of himself…through the rift. But he didn't finish. He ran out of time."

She knew what happened. The Doctor's last words had made it through, after all, and floated around the universe until Torchwood had grabbed them.

"He must have known there was someone over here that could translate it," she realised, looking up at him. She started to unfold the paper.

"Before you read it, there's something I need you to do for me." Tobias cut in.

"Anything," said Rose, and she meant it. She was overcome with gratitude.

"Go to this website," he scribbled something on the back of the note, "and send what you find to your Dad."

"What is it?"

"Someone's blog, witnessing my death." he explained. "Please, I'm begging you, let them think I'm dead. I'm as good as, anyway. I have no ship. This is my last regeneration. Let me disappear, and I promise you'll never hear from me again."

"Of course I will," she promised. If she'd ever had any doubts, they had gone the moment he gave her the paper. She closed her eyes.

"Thank you," whispered Tobias, and when she opened her eyes, he was gone. Rose was kneeling alone in the middle of the floor. With shaking hands, she unfolded the paper and read the three words written on it:

_I love you_.

Her heart rose until she thought she could fly, and the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders. Tears of happiness coursed down the cheeks of the girl kneeling in a heap of possessions, weeping to herself in the dark.


	17. Epilogue

**At last! I was beginning to think I'd never type those two words! Thanks to everyone who helped me with this, my sister for giving endless advice, and of course everyone who reviewed, you kept me writing!**

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.**

* * *

Rose sat at her desk, pen in hand, a fresh notebook open in front of her. It was time to let it out. Previously, when she'd tried writing about her adventures, the words hadn't come; but now, after everything that had happened, she finally felt ready. Talking to Sarah Jane had loosened her tongue, and helping Tobias had lightened her mind. Now the words buzzed in her head, anxious to be free. 

Rose took a deep breath and put pen to paper, letting the words flow from her brain, down her arm and through the pen. And once she started, there was no way she could stop.

"_Planet Earth. This is where I was born, and this is where I died. The first nineteen years of my life, nothing happened. Nothing at all. And then I met a man called The Doctor. A man that could change his face. He took me away from home in his magical machine. He showed me the whole of time and space. I thought it would never end. That's what I though, but then came the Army of Ghosts. Then came Torchwood and the war. That's when it all ended, and this is the story of how I died."_

She wrote for nearly three days with no sleep, only eating when she remembered the food that one of her friends brought her. It was like a madness overcame her; all she could do was write, all she could see was the Doctor, blazing like a beacon in her mind.

By the end, Rose's hand was throbbing, and there was a pile of dry pens and scrunched up balls of paper on the desk next to her, but she was free. She would love the Doctor for the rest of her life, and never get over losing him, but now, at least, she had some closure. Dealing with Tobias without the Doctor had reminded her that she could still function without him, and writing about her experiences would make sure she never forgot him.

Light-headed from lack of sleep, but still wide awake and buzzing with adrenaline, Rose grabbed her mobile phone and punched in Sarah Jane's number. She answered on the third ring.

"Rose?" she sounded slightly groggy. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Really fantastic." Rose paused. "I quit my job."

"Your father told me. In fact, he offered it to me."

"What? Really?" That would be pretty appropriate, thought Rose. "What did you say?"

"I turned it down. Going back after all these years would be a huge mistake. I like the quiet life now."

"Actually, that's why I rang. I'm starting a business, like Torchwood, but not so…all-powerful. I thought you might want to join me. Be my partner."

"A business? That's brilliant! Of course, I accept!"

"What happened to the quiet life?" Rose grinned, relieved.

"Stuff the quiet life. I've got the whole of retirement to worry about soap operas and knitting. And you'll need me; I bet you don't know the first thing about setting up a business like that."

"That's true," Rose blushed.

"What about Mickey? Are you going to ask him?"

"I already have. He's psyched about it. I think his exact words were: 'Stick me in a back room with the gadgets; I'll be the Tin Dog, just don't ask me to be the Doctor.'"

Sarah Jane laughed, and Rose joined in. It was a laugh full of new beginnings.

"So, do we have a name yet? Smith and Tyler? Tyler and Smith?"

"Actually, I've already got an idea for a name. And it isn't that."

"Well, come round first thing tomorrow, and you can tell me all your plans. It's too late now."

"Is it?" Rose glanced at her watch. It was almost midnight. "Oh, I'm sorry! Did I wake you?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll see you tomorrow."

Rose said her goodbyes and hung up. Now that she had nothing to occupy herself with, she was aware of how completely, bone-achingly tired she was. Four months of restless nights suddenly weighed down on her, and she let herself sink down onto the desk, using her arms as a pillow. Getting into the bed six feet away seemed like too much trouble.

The last think Rose saw before she sank into a deep, dreamless sleep, was the final sentence in her book:

"_I am the Bad Wolf, and this is the story of how I lived."  
_

THE END


End file.
